I have to say that this worry about soft skills is the exact same problem that other people have about math and computing. How many times have you heard some saying that they can't do math? Or they hate computers.

Maybe I'm lucky because I moved from sales into computing or because my wife is a communications manager but communications skills can be learned like any other and require the same amount of rigor.

And to equate soft skills and communication as almost lying is very naive. Anyone who is telling people to replace yes with maybe is lacking in confidence not communication skills.

If you are in a discussion where you can't say yes to someone then that means the communication skills in your whole organization are lacking.

I'd say if people have to fudge project timelines then they haven't engaged the customer in the planning of the project fully enough.

Communication is all about engaging people in the process.

It's telling the truth and making sure that all parties can deal with the truth.